The origins of streaming entertainment began when theatre went global.
In the late 19th century, in a world before cinema, before the internet, and long before streaming services, audiences still accessed multi-media blockbusters. Since the 1860s audiences were treated to operas, operettas, comic operas and musical comedies. There was also a much older spectacular form, derived from Italian Commedia dell’arte, staged in English theatres from around the 1720s. By the 1870s, it was firmly recognised as the annual Christmas pantomime.
Regardless of form, theatre music was performed by orchestras or ensembles in melodramatic styled dramas, whether they were a script from Shakespeare, a pantomime or one of hundreds of formulaic serious dramas like those by Dion Boucicault. They all revealed the spectacle that the high-tech of the age could create through special effects: through amazing scenic effects, unbelievably elaborate costuming and casts of extras that reached into the hundreds.
Victorian Theatre’s Imperial Connection
Michael Booth’s seminal text, Victorian Spectacular Theatre (1981), shows that the elaboration of theatrical spectacle directly corresponded to the elaboration of nineteenth-century Victorian grandeur, in architecture and enterprise. Theatrical demand undoubtedly grew simultaneously alongside the construction of massive monuments to wealth and imperial glory like banks and exhibition halls. 1
The growth of the theatre industry (symbolised through the establishment of London’s West End and an array of regional circuits) was mirrored in the global colonial cultural landscape of the British Empire. No aspect of theatre reflected this more than the growth of individual theatre companies and the success of their managers who, unlike the managers of small family businesses of Georgian theatre. Instead, the 19th-century manager behaved like “empire-builders”. They were to significantly shape the cultural identity of the English speaking theatre through their management practices.
Theatre Managers
In London, managers like Augustus Harris ran the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane around grand pantomime spectacles. Other managers such as George Edwardes of the Gaiety Theatre specialised in growing musical comedies and Richard D’Oyly Carte of the Savoy continued in offering audiences Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas.
By the 1870s, American managers moved from independent stock companies to “combinations”—centralised producing units that sent touring shows across the country. Entrepreneurs like Charles Frohman and George Lederer were noted for their speculator flair, with the latter’s company being responsible for the London success of The Belle of New York.
However, it was the “London hallmark”that was used as a standard of excellence by colonial Australian theatre managers like J. C. Williamson. Characterised as the “Napoleon of the Australian theatre,” Williamson dominated the industry by setting up the largest company in the Southern Hemisphere, with theatres around Australia, New Zealand, South African, India and South East Asia . He formed strategic alliances with managers like Arthur Garner, George Musgrove, and later the Tait brothers to control the Australasian market and secure venue access for imported stars. As the industry grew, he aggressively opposed the formation of musicians’ and actors’ unions, frequently using legal technicalities to de-register them.2
The Special Role of Pantomime
By the late-19th century, the Christmas pantomime became an industrial-scale “spectacle” within the theatres of the British Empire. American also continued to use the form in the early 19th century, before the musical became its most prominent popular theatrical form. As a form of entertainment, the pantomime scenic style used the “Transformation Scene” as its technical pinnacle: the wonder of one scene (often a “dark” or “drab” cave) mechanically dissolving and rebuilding itself into a “Realm of Happiness.” In Australia, scene painters such as John Hennings, W.R. Coleman and George Upward ensured the Australian stage looked exactly like those offered in London’s West End.
Pantomime scenery wasn’t just beautiful; it was topical. As J. C Williamson was the largest producer of Australian pantomime between 1879 and 1914, his productions showed local scenes as closely aligned with belonging to an Anglo-Saxondom: audiences viewing Williamson’s first pantomime production, Jack and the Beanstalk (1882/83), viewed a “Grand Panorama Of The Egyptian War,” concluding with the bombardment of Alexandria and the landing of British troops. In Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1892) audiences saw a staging of “The Triple Alliance and Federation of English Speakers,” featuring a “Grand National Federation Finale” where Britannia, America, and Australia pledged mutual support.
Six years later, another production of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1898) included a series of “Grand Patriotic Tableaux” illustrating the “Power and Progress of the Anglo-Saxon Race”. And in support of Australia’s entry into the Boer War, Williamson’s production of Little Red Riding Hood (1899) featured a military tableau where a “Boer stronghold” was stormed and replaced by the Union Jack. The scene concluded with the patriotic song “Children of the Empire”. Williamson’s WW1 production of Cinderella (1914) featured a “glorified and spectacular ‘March of the Allies’”. This culminated in the Fairy Godmother transforming into Britannia to sing “Fighting for the Motherland”.
J.C. Williamson’s pantomime arrangements often featured scenes that functioned as a “national pageant” to highlight Australia’s integration into the imperial economy. These productions were designed to provide a sense of “well-being, security, and certainty” by showing Australia as a vital asset to the “Great Empire of the South”. Specific instances of these celebratory spectacles included the “Gorgeous Ballet of Australia’s Products” that was featured in The Forty Thieves (1913). The spectacle of these ballets relied heavily on the use of “Beautiful Australian Girls” dressed as various local products or industries.
Costumes and the “Erotic Topography”
Performers were often used essentially as “scenery,” elevated into “fantastic compositions” to decorate the magical transformation scenes that suggested Australia’s prosperous future. This was made even more sensational through the pantomime’s opulent use of costumes, displaying the female body in ways that radically contrasted to traditional Victorian values. As the role of “Principal Boy” was played by a crossed-dressed young actress, ‘his’ costume was designed to highlight the female form in silk tights. Referred to as “breeches part”, the display of legs was further amplified by chorus lines of dancers crossed-dress as her companions. Tracy Davis (1991) argued in Actresses as Working Women, that such displays were a type of “erotic topography” of the Victorian spectacular theatre, as sexuality was managed through theatrical mise en scène.3 If the stage is, as classically expressed by Aristotle and Shakespeare, a mirror of reality, then the pantomime shows us that reality through the Fairground’s Hall of Mirrors. It didn’t just “mimic” reality; it shaped it. It was a site where English-speaking audiences were a globally homogeneous group.
At the same time, there are levels of escapism and power dynamics in play. There was freedom from contemporary dress begun by Madame Vestris and her introduction of the ‘fairy tale’ pantomime, together with James Planche, that was less political than the sharp-edged clown-dominated spectacle of the 1830s in which Grimaldi dominated. Vestris’s scant pantomime costume allowed an escape from the restrictive, submissive behaviour moulded by contemporary Victorian dress. The fairytale inspired pantomime shaped the boy as a creature whose virginity allowed her/him to represent a noble, feminine mind while inhabiting a masculine role. On stage, the “boy” Prince became the active, valiant rescuer, someone who amplified the binary between conventional gender roles when paired with the passive “angel in the house” pantomime girl.
The showing of legs were even more provocatively displayed by Music Hall artist, Vesta Tilley.
Global Circuits and Touring Infrastructure
As vital components of the British colonial enterprise, theatre companies functioned within a global network in which professionals “toured the Empire” much like soldiers. This itinerant lifestyle for actors, often described as “glorified strolling,” saw the traditional English provincial circuits of Bristol or York replaced by a vast international circuit spanning the United States, South Africa, India, New Zealand, and Australia.
This was greatly assisted by technological enablers such as the steamship technology that moved actors across the Pacific such as the S. S. Mikado, which carried J. C. Williamson and his wife Maggie Moore from San Francisco to Sydney via Honolulu.
Such technology was capitalised on at scale from the 1880s onwards in Australia when the “Triumvirate” (Williamson, Garner, and Musgrove) secured control of the colonial market by guaranteeing imported actors and companies a venue in every major urban centre. This enable ‘the Firm’ to import “tailor-made” European theatre, often including entire London or American companies, complete with scenery, costumes, and directors. Managers and their agents frequently traveled to London, Paris, and New York to purchase “sensational effects,” and “striking novelties” for the Australian market.
The Experience of the Professional “Stroller”
Despite the celebratory nature of the Victorian Spectacular Theatre, however, the reality for artists was often a sense of cultural displacement and loneliness. The physical demands and distance were tremendous with touring companies travelling massive distances—between 13,000 and 15,000 miles. Ironically, the ‘Christmas pantomime’ often lasting up to ten months.
There were financial disparities too. While “stars” like Nellie Stewart or imported comedians received high salaries (£50–£60 per week), local choristers earned significantly less, though they were still paid more while on tour to account for living away from home. Then there was the dangers that came from supporting British military campaigns in the Sudan, South Africa, and World War I.
What have I learned from the setting up of the Australian theatre industry?
The following insights continued to ignite my curiosity.
What is valued as entertainment comes from a number of cultural permissions: from the might of military strength to the hankering of peoples living in diasporas that share common values and beliefs. Each part of the cultural picture contributes towards enabling the shared moments of producing and viewing theatre on a grand scale. This has led me towards an eclectic view that examines political science (e.g. Gramsci’s theory of Cultural Hegemony), artistic theories from Aristotle to contemporary theatre (e.g. Bakhtin, Brecht and Boal) and cognitive scientific views on engaging audiences (e.g. Bruce McConachie, Amy Cook and Nicola Shaughnessy).
The role of the Victorian theatre manager was decisive in moving the English theatre industry from small, family-businesses to large scale propriety limited companies that built the larger theatres (for instance, London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane and Melbourne’s Princess Theatre) which we now acknowledge was part of a popular theatre movement that increased the size of the English-speaking theatre globally. At the same time, studying the work of theatre managers allowed me to view the theatre artists’ (writers, actors and designers) continual need to consider the local context.
The economics of popular theatre shows a tendency for theatre managers to behave monopolistically to cover off on the tremendous risks they took in funding the size of investment needed to stage the ‘Victorian Spectacular Theatre’. However, as the economics of creativity requires far more analysis than has been reported to date, it is advisable to look at foundational research carried out, for instance, by Tracy Davis (The Economics of the British Stage, 2000) and David Throsby (Economics and Culture, 2000).
The political essence within the terms ‘colonial’ and ‘post-colonial’ are still not settled. This is best viewed in the many ways borders are still in dispute and how major powers still exert their dominance over smaller ones. As a historian, this has taught me of the power of both deliberate actions by ‘bad actors’, as well as those of ‘unintended circumstances’. I remain hopeful that history bends towards peace making.
I have come to understand how fifty years of participating and learning about Australian theatre history has afforded me lessons from First Nation artists - playwrights, producers and performers. The quality of their stories of survival have been a source of seeing acts of generosity and the wisdom of reciprocity. I return time after time to reading and viewing how theatre companies such as Big hART and Bangarra Dance have forged their presence through a combination of clear vision and the economics of collective funding for extraordinarily beautiful work.
What I have concluded is that the ethical heart of why we create theatre is a contested one. Is it escape, the dopomine fix that enables us to believe that we can live ‘happily ever after’? Is it consciousness raising, as Bertolt Brecht articulated to warn his German audiences on the dangers of authoritarian dictatorship under the Nazis? And, now, what am I to make of the relationship between ‘live’ theatre and its many mediated alternatives? Will the actor be replaced by artificial intelligence of a facsimile of a human agent?
I understand that if clarity is to be achieved, it will come via dialogue, that quintessential characteristic of entertainment that calls on performers and audiences to share meaning making a moment at a time.
Booth, Michael, (1981) Victorian Spectacular Theatre 1850-1910. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
J.C. Williamson Ltd. took action to the High Court of Australia to attempt to remove the legal basis for actors to unionise entirely. They argued that: An association of actors was incapable of being a party to an industrial dispute; An association of actors was incapable of registration; The theatre was not an “industry” within the meaning of the Constitution or the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act. The High Court ultimately upheld the Registrar’s constitutional powers and disallowed the Firm’s action. Legal Reference: The King against The Deputy Industrial Registrar of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, New South Wales Registry (1912), 15 Commonwealth Law Reports, 576.
Davis, Tracy C., (1991) Actresses as Working Women: Their Social Identity in Victorian Culture. London: Routledge.